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Fall 2008 Reading Series Thursday, October 9 Arroz Con Pollo What role can a home-cooked meal have in the struggle pitting corporate greed against a father’s love for his daughter? Take a deep breath, and enjoy the smell, in this tragic story about love, temptation, greed, corporate downsizing, and the unintended consequences that result. Edward H. Hernandez, Ph.D is
the author of several other plays including Knowledge Transfer; The
Elevator Principle; Quid Pro Quo; SOX; Appalachian Redneck and How to Win Friends and Influence People. His
workplace-themed plays have been performed in Seattle, San Francisco,
New York and Los Angeles. He is an avid theatregoer, seeing
over 70 shows a year. In 2007 he was named Society for Human
Resource Management National Human Resource Professor of the Year. Tuesday, October 21 The Last Christmas The Ross family is Jewish but still celebrates Christmas. But year after year, as Dave Rosenweig's domineering personality and frustration increasingly take over, clashes over family and religion preclude attendance by certain family members, all leading up to the very Last Christmas. Jon Brooks was a co-writer of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 2006 and 2007 summer productions – Godfellas and Making a Killing. His one-act play, Better Than Hitler, was produced at the Players Theatre in New York City, the Bay One-Acts Festival in San Francisco, and in Bologna, Italy. His one-act, November 2001, was produced for the 2005 San Francisco Fringe Festival. In 2004, his full-length play The Button ran for two weeks at The Bloomington Playwrights Project in Bloomington, Indiana; and his short play Small, Medium, Large has been produced in Rhode Island, North Carolina, and San Francisco. Mr. Brooks received an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College. Thursday, October 30 Cranial Capacity When you’re an affluent couple, like Bill and Marisa, living in Piedmont and you cannot conceive – adopting a baby is all about making the right choice. There are plenty of orphaned babies in Oakland, but none of them can compete with the beautiful, blonde children in Siberia that Marisa sees advertised online. When little Annika arrives, the couple’s dream quickly dissolves into a nightmare… The Portal Morris is a nebbish, lonely young man that worries the birds outside his window are spying on him. When he falls in love with Julia, the young woman in his office, and she asks him to “trust her”, Morris is willing to do anything. When Julia takes him to the mysterious Portal, he realizes nothing will be the same. Morgan Ludlow’s latest full-length play, The Widow West,
was presented at Stage Werx Theatre in San Francisco to sold-out
houses. Morgan has had plays performed or read at the Eureka
Theatre, the Exit Theatre, the Off-Market Theatre in San Francisco,
City Lights Theatre in San Jose, Gaia Performing Arts Center in
Berkeley, Ross Valley Players in Marin County, Virago Theatre Company
in Alameda, The Pegasus in Monte Rio and at the Interborough Rep in New
York City. Morgan is currently a member of Theatre Bay Area, The
Play Café, The Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco, and The
Dramatists Guild of America. Thursday, november 13 Last Call The theme of Last Call is the right to die-or not. Three family stories are interwoven, presenting different points of view. Family secrets and stressed relationships surface as each character confronts difficult decisions and comes to his edge in this drama on a timely subject. Carol Sheldon has had productions on both coasts and the mid-west, including a professional production on the east coast. She’s won play-writing contests in Michigan; was a finalist in the Eugene O’Neill, Louisville’s Ten Minute contest, PART and other contests across the country. Carol moved to California from Michigan twelve years ago, and has been active in Marin theatre groups where seven of her works have been staged in Ross Valley Players’ Ross Alternative Works (RAW). Plays staged at PCSF include High Spirits and Lifelines. Other venues include Marin’s ‘Fringe’ and the retirement homes of Marin. Carol also writes poetry and fiction. This play, Last Call is admittedly a political piece. Carol believes it is the responsibility and privilege of the playwright to tackle difficult moral issues of the day. Tuesday, November 18 My Pregnancy, by Kirsten Kozlowski Kirsten Kozlowski has been ordered to give a school speech about her junior year pregnancy. The good news: she tells everyone what’s so bad about teenage pregnancy. The bad news: that was the bad news. Vonn Scott Bair is an actor-playwright-screenwriter-producer-director based in San Francisco. Onstage, he has starred in The Hunchback of Notre Dame; The Night and Mitch
(at the 2008 Fringe). Over twenty of his plays and screenplays
have received full productions. He co-produced the first online
interactive theatre experience, Yes, Maybe No. Thursday, november 20 Future Sex Griffen Jackson looks good in women’s clothes, and he’s not afraid to show it. The year is 2014, and San Francisco has been designated a safe zone for alternative lifestyles, while the rest of the Country is mired in religious fervor and hate crimes. For Griffen, SF is wonderful, except for one thing: Inspector Stillman of Population Compliance (PC). This year Griffen and his best friend Rikka have been selected by PC to be the Region’s Birth Parents. They must have a baby in order to comply with PC, or be expelled from the City. The catch? Griffen is wondering if he can do a better job at parenting than his father, Rikka is married to his sister, and Stillman is trying to make a name for himself by ferreting out undesirables, namely, Griffen’s Slovakian mail-order bride. Scott McMorrow’s award-winning plays have been produced in Europe and throughout the States, including Off-Off Broadway. His work has been widely published, and translated into Italian. Scott has been a Guest Artist at The Kennedy Center, and he has recently been selected as the San Francisco Regional Representative for the Dramatists Guild of America. Tuesday, december 16 Boeto Meg and Wyatt, by all appearances, live a comfortable life in a stylish loft in San Francisco, but things aren’t always what they seem. Boeto is a powerful story of a young, married couple whose marriage is one of love and disconnection. As Meg prepares for a work party, Wyatt prepares to surprise her with plans that will move their relationship, he hopes, to a new level, but he has forgotten to take something into consideration: Meg. Jennifer Roberts is an MFA student at California College of Arts studying Playwriting and Creative Nonfiction. Jennifer likes to cross boundaries and genres. Currently, she is marrying new media with traditional writing in a series of ‘digital essays’ focusing on a multi-generation of women and women’s issues. She is also experimenting with using new media in the playwriting arena. The Edge, Revisited Gus and Darcy are aging punk rockers, clinging to the outward trappings of their youth on the edge of popular culture, and the near clichéd posturing that defined them in their hey day; their ten-year relationship is buckling under the strain. Who will be the first to address the aching fear familiar to so many among us: Do you love me for who I am, who I could be, or who I was when we met, and can I finally stop wearing make-up to bed? With the unsolicited, often unwelcome aid of an omniscient narrator, Gus and Darcy live on the edge once again: the edge of (hilarious) heartbreak. Kim Luke,
playwright, musician, performance artist, and aging punk rocker,
studied theater at San Joaquin Delta College, LACC, and honed her
biting dialogue and writing skills by way of the Second City Training
Center in Chicago (and listening to your conversations). Her
plays have been produced on both coasts and in the middle (Chicago),
and her essays and short stories can be found in magazines of the paper
and virtual variety. She has written and performed
one-woman shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, and was a
key writing and performing member of numerous renegade theater groups
including Dismember Ensemble, Shoestring Players and Theatre
Carnival. She is an acclaimed singer/songwriter/arranger, lending
these particular talents to live performances as well as the production
of her bluegrass musical, “Last Call at Loretta Mae’s Bar &
Grille.” She finds inspiration behind the wheel of a car, on long
drives. Kim is currently residing on the central coast of
California with a gaggle of picky eaters who bear a striking
resemblance to her husband. Musings can be found at www.xanga.com/madameluke. Contact Kim at kluke@baymoon.com. Thursday, january 15, 2009 Hemlock: A Romantic Comedy About Assisted Suicide HIV+ Ken has just helped his terminally ill HIV- lover Frank take a poison that will kill him in about an hour. Now they have an hour to fill, which Frank requests they spend retelling their stories about the hot sex they had outside their open relationship. But it’s not so easy to concentrate when the clock is ticking. Contains graphic sexual dialog. Chas Belov is an
active playwright in the PCSF and is a member of the Dramatists Guild,
Inc. Hemlock is his second full-length play. His first play, Rice
Kugel, had a staged reading produced by PCSF. His short play On the
Last Day of the Week in the Seventh Month of the Year in the City of
Brotherly Love had a full production by PCSF as part of Sheharazade
2007. |